Will a Harvard Professor\’s New Technology Make College Lectures a Thing of
the Past?
LIZ DWYER – Education Editor
Another sign that the college lecture might be dying: Harvard University
physics professor Eric Mazur is championing the \”flipped classroom,\” a model
where information traditionally transferred during lectures is learned on a
student\’s own time, and classroom time is spent discussing and applying
knowledge to real-world situations. To make it easy for professors to
transition out of lecture mode, Mazur has developed Learning Catalytics, an
interactive software that enables them to make the most of student
interactions and maximize the retention of knowledge.
Mazur sold attendees at the recent Building Learning Communities conference
on this new approach by first asking them to identify something they\’re good
at, and then having them explain how they mastered it. After the crowd
shared, Mazur pointed out that no one said they\’d learned by listening to
lectures. Similarly, Mazur said, college students don\’t learn by taking
notes during a lecture and then regurgitating information. They need to be
able to discuss concepts, apply them to problems and get real-time feedback.
Go to
http://www.good.is/post/will-a-harvard-professor-s-new-technology-make-college-lectures-a-thing-of-the-past/
for the full article.